Chris O'Hagan (C.M.Ohagan@derby.ac.uk)
Tue, 26 Oct 1999 16:47:10 +0100
From: "Chris O'Hagan" <C.M.Ohagan@derby.ac.uk> Date: Tue, 26 Oct 1999 16:47:10 +0100 Subject: Power and positivism
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Ania Lian suggests that we need to 'work from within' to change the
way off-mainstream research is regarded. Those of us that have such
an agenda are probably already trying to do that. Unfortunately, our
problem is that we are not in the elite institutions, and even if we
were, our rebellion would soon be tamed and institutionalised. A
classic work on the way research networks operate is Diana Crane's
Invisible Colleges - I think she coined the expression. She points
out that these tightly knit but international 'mafias' operate
largely outside the conventional methods of communication - they
don't need publication to exchange ideas, publication for them is
just a way of asserting priority. They use informal means - closed
seminars, preprints, telephone etc. The very fact that we are here
using a public means of communication defines us as outside those
mafias. For them, email means an even tighter and swifter exchange
od ideas privately, yet further disadvantaging the rest.
Why should we be surprised? - this is the way power is exercised in
all domains, not just the academic - 'information is power', 'power
is the power to control' and control is...big research grants,
status, and yet more power. The Matthew effect in science, as Merton
identified it - 'To him that hath it shall be given and from him that
hath not it shall be taken away.' Amen.
I actually think it is the 90% of 'mediocrities' who assist the elite
by continuing to peddle myths like academic 'disinterestedness'. We
keep alive the illusion... to their advantage.
The postmodern, anti-positivist agenda has at its heart diversity and
the rejection of universal 'authority', yet I find some of the best
postmodernists in the elite institutions, and some of the silliest
modernists in the rest..supporting the very forces that diminish
them! The elite is not so foolish as to allow such a powerful tool
as postmodernism to be seized by the rebels!
In reply to J Newman, logical positivism is but an extreme form of
positivism. Positivism itself dates from the Enlightenment, and the
belief in inexorable progress through science (an idea actually
coined by Bacon in the Late Rennaissance, but that is by the way.)
Two key ideas are that there is a right answer which can be converged
upon and that theories progress - in all we can describe the
structure of a real world which is independent of the observer,
culture, gender, society etc, if only we can establish the
incontrovertible facts. Popper may have dismissed confirmationism,
but falsificationism is simply the former in a looser guise. He had
no answer to the question how do you know what is false, what to
reject, the theory or the experimental 'facts', except to shout down
the opposition both in his lectures and in public debate. It was
ironic that Popper denied falsification to his own theory! And, in
his belief that each new development of a theory was somehow a closer
description of 'reality' (although he accepted we could never
completely describe that reality)he was a complete Whig (nb the Whig
Interpretation of History (Butterfield) meaning a naive belief that
humanity is progressing (towards what?). (Which reminds me of a
question I put to Believers - At what level of human suffering -
particularly by children - would you cease to believe in God, or
believe that there is a God but that he is not a priori 'good'?) Is
there a maximum? God knows there is already enough for anyone's
imagination.
Sorry if I sound a bit cynical - it must be winter closing in.
Actually, I think in education we all have a great chance to break
free of the traditional academic chains - because we are all at the
frontier of potential change in the way HE is provided. We have the
power of praxis, denied to our researchers who are a long way from
application.
Chris O'Hagan
Chris O'Hagan
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Professor Christopher O'Hagan
Dean of Learning Development
Centre for Educational Development and Media
University of Derby
Kedleston Road
DERBY, DE22 1GB
England
Tel: +44 (0)1332 622262 (direct)
Fax: +44 (0)1332 622772
Email: c.m.ohagan@derby.ac.uk
WWW: http://www.derby.ac.uk/cedm/welcome.html
I am always seeking book proposals for SEDA Publications:
http://www.seda.demon.co.uk/pubsmenu.html
and article proposals for the webzine The Technology Source:
http://horizon.unc.edu/TS
There is a crack - a crack in everything:
That's how the light gets in. L.Cohen, 'Anthem'
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